I don't understand why they would have both Xizor and the Ithorian Commander. The Aqualish Assassins would only benefit from one of the CEs for +4/+10 since they're both straight bonuses and the Ithorian Commander is boardwide CE which Xizor isn't. No one else in he squad benefits from Xizor, so unless the plan is to grant the Aqualish Grenades, which I doubt. Xizor could have been here for the Fringe Reserves, but Lobot CLO would have been a better choice with the Recon and Reserves 30. So Xizor is really wasted space here. He could have used another Ithorian Commander as backup if desperate and then 2 more Aqualish Assassins. Just very confused how this could have been in the Top 4...

Thanks, man--Got myself two titles now, but I've got a ways to go to catch up to you.

I'm still up, so I guess I'll type up a tourney report. First of all, thanks to Ray for putting the event together--it was a really good time in a great venue. I have to say, if you ever get a chance to run your regional in the back room of a restaurant rather than a game store, oh my god do it--it smells way better, you don't have to leave for lunch, and every once in a while the waitress comes by and asks if you'd like a re-fill. It was a really nice place to have a regional.

Anyway, I ran an OR Squad that is sort of a tweaked version of the squad Sithborg ran in Chicago, and which I thought was pretty clever. Basically, I dropped an extra shooter he had (Dashing Lando) and instead brought more activations and the ability to bring in even more activations with Lobot/Gha. I like the sacrifice of firepower for versatility, particularly since you can still use the versatility to bring in firepower if you feel the need (as I did a couple times). I'm not convinced it's quite a mega-awesome squad (in particular, I'm not sure how it deals with Lancer, even with ABM shutting down twin--you'd need to win map roll, and Jarael would need to rule on parry saves as she rushes across the map. NR is also a problem--more on that shortly).

Round One--Zach K (Lord Vader [via Palleaon swap], Boba, Palleaon)

For my Lobot reinforcements, I brought Human Bodyguard, Uggy, 3 mice. This turned out to be a strong choice when Boba BH rolled a 20 on Atton that I was able to bodyguard. Basically, I built an early lead in this game when Zach didn't see he'd left his Lobot in a place where Dash could generate a long hallway shot, so I got ahead early. In the third round, everything went down in a hurry, as Boba dropped Jarael but Atton and Revancist dropped Vader. At that point, I just had more firepower than he did.

Round Two--Dave (OR w. Jedi Exile)

With Lobot, I brought a Czerka, an uggy, and two mice. We had two very similar squads, except I had Dash and a bunch of activations instead of the Exile. This turned out to be a good thing, since my ABM hurt him more than his hurt mine (since he was looping more commander effects). If you're going up against a team that doesn't have accurate or a big movement breaker, oh wow the Czerka/Atton/Bastila combo is nasty. I was able to use it (along with Dash) to put down the Exile in the second round, and then clean up for the next few rounds. Dave hadn't played in a while, but he's clearly got some chops--I just had a matchup advantage here.

Round Three--Ray (Thrawn/Vader scourge/Arica/Pallaeon)

Ray and I were the only two people at 6 points after the first two rounds, so we got paired up for a very intense game. I used Lobot to bring an MTB and six mice. Ray did a great job using Pallaeon to limit what I could do with ABM. In the third round, we engaged in a big way, and I started the round by running Jarael in with Ambush to attack Arica and hopefully take her out of the round. Jarael responded to this big moment by hitting only one of three attacks, and Arica made the save. At this moment, I thought I was in big trouble, but Jarael did a great job on parry and evade saves, and managed to hang on by a thread until Ray's last attack of the round. She died, but she made Ray use up a lot of attacks to get her, and that gave me a chance to chew through some of the uggies Ray was using to screen Vader so I could open up a line of sight. That came up big in the next round, when Atton dropped 90 damage on Vader on the first activation of the round. I was able to finish him with Dash later in the round, and a game that had been 33-14 Ray after three rounds went to 77-38 Ben after four. I put down Arica in the next round, and Ray conceded. I'm not going to lie--I'm real glad that I avoided Ray in the elimination rounds. Pallaeon is a big problem for Bastila, and I suspect Ray would have made some adjustments to limit how badly I could hurt him with Atton. And frankly, in the game we did play, if Atton hadn't rolled so well against Vader, I suspect the result might have been different.

Round Four--Bill German (NR Beats Galore: Han, Mara, Jaina)

This time, I had Lobot bring a bodyguard, an uggy, three mice. This was a really fast game, in stark contrast to the finals matchup I'll describe shortly--we were done in five rounds. The game swung on a couple of crits. I had taken the lead early by killing Mara Jade with Dash and Atton after she had killed Jarael, but then at the end of the round, Jaina charged Dash (at full health) and went hit, hit, crit. So Dash and Jarael were dead, and I was running out of attackers. However, I won init to start the next round, and Atton attacked Jaina, and went hit, crit--with ABM that worked out to 110 damage when she failed the deflect save, and then I just had to chase Han around a bit with the Revanchist. It was a fun, intense game, but it was a light snack compared to the 12-course meal Bill and I were going to play later.

Semis--Shermanator (Charging, Juiced Up Uggies and Aqualish)

I used Lobot to bring in two Rodian Raiders, figuring that a triple attack at +5 for 10 damage is actually kind of useful when you're trying to kill a giant horde of ugnaughts. Basically, Sherm's squad relied on looping like four commander effects together, and I had ABM, and against me, he never hit his reserves roll (apparently he'd hit it twice in the fourth round). It was just an awful matchup for him, and I won fairly handily.

Finals--Bill German again.

I brought the same reinforcements as Round Four, but this time we were on Ruined Base (or whatever the heck it's called now--it looks like a ruined base, darnit) instead of Theed, as we had been in the first game. Where the inevitable rush to the middle on Theed resulted in a fast game, the sprawling nature of Bill's map, as well as the difficulty of movement, delayed engagement in a game that turned into a kind of Greek epic. By my scorecard, we went 12 rounds. Here's the round-by-round scores (Me-Him): 5-0 10-0 15-5 15-10 (it should be noted that, in Round Four, the central doors were breached and it was on--I was out of gambit because I was chasing Jaina down a hallway after she had run past my entire squad to go try to kill Bastila--there were also, by this point, several reinforcement kills not reflected in the score) 15-15 (in this round, Jaina made it to Bastila after Jarael did zero damage to her on three attacks, and Jaina dropped 40 damage on Bastila--my attempts to counterpunch Jaina were decidedly less than successful) 20-25 (this was the only round Bill led, after killing a mouse and uggy I was using to disrupt the movement of Han and Mara. During this round, Jaina got Bastila down to 10 hit points, while the rest of my squad got Jaina down to 10 hit points, but couldn't kill her, as she made one save after another--I think Jaina probably absorbed 250 damage worth of hits in this game)81-53 (obviously, this was a big one--I won init, and Atton squeezed off two shots at Jaina. The first missed. The second, with combined fire from the Bodyguard, hit. Jaina failed the deflect, and Bastila had survived Bill's flanking maneuver...barely. Luke Force Spirit said "What a world!" and shimmered into the ether. Mara promptly killed Jarael and the Bodyguard)136-84 (Han smoked Atton to start the round; I had damaged Han a bit previously--with an unevaded shot apiece from Dash and [get this] Gha Nackt. In this round, after Han was done, Dash came out from the corner he was hiding behind, and hit only once, but Han failed the save. The Revanchist pushed Han to kill him)141-122 (Bastila, pressed into service as a fighter now, was killed by Mara. The Revanchist and Mara duel; Mara is now out of force points, while the Revanchist goes back and forth between zero and one. They whittle away at each other's hit points)146-127 (Did I mention that both of our Lobots were locked in rooms collecting gambit? Pretty sure my Lobot still hasn't come out of the closet. Anyway, Revanchist and Mara swing at each other; I won init so thankfully Mara isn't getting cunning and 24 w/ duelist isn't that easy to hit; Dash comes crashing in to where he can finally see through the stealth, and Mara is down to 10 HP)GAME (I win init, Revanchist kills Mara, and Bill concedes)

So yeah, that final game was pretty crazy. Did I mention that at one point Jaina was located in the in the last row of the map on my side? Or that the game went long enough for Revanchist to use Force Push 4 twice? Or that at one point every major attacking piece on the board except for Dash was located in that long hallway on the bottom left portion of the map? Pretty sure I did more fighting in that hallway than I did the last five times I played on that map combined.

Anyway, it was a heck of a game, and Bill was fine opponent, and a few different rolls would have swung the thing. I'm glad that I was able to defend my 2010 Missouri Regional Title, but even more than that, I was happy to see that the game is still strong in the Show-Me State. It was a very fun day. Thanks again to Ray and everyone else that made the tournament happen.

I don't understand why they would have both Xizor and the Ithorian Commander. The Aqualish Assassins would only benefit from one of the CEs for +4/+10 since they're both straight bonuses and the Ithorian Commander is boardwide CE which Xizor isn't. No one else in he squad benefits from Xizor, so unless the plan is to grant the Aqualish Grenades, which I doubt. Xizor could have been here for the Fringe Reserves, but Lobot CLO would have been a better choice with the Recon and Reserves 30. So Xizor is really wasted space here. He could have used another Ithorian Commander as backup if desperate and then 2 more Aqualish Assassins. Just very confused how this could have been in the Top 4...

This redundancy of the commander effects was discussed at the tourney as well. I don't really know who Chris was matched up against other than in the fourth round, where he hit his reserves twice in the game and was able to wear down a Revan, Sith Lord squad. I watched the end of that game, and Chris just had so many pieces on the board and Bill Hazel, who was running more of a big beatstick squad, could only really kill a handful of them every round. And when 8 uggies attack you with the Ithorian effect and squad assault, they will hit you some.

It probably also helped Chris that no one ran the Lancer. Oh boy would he have lost to a Lancer. And I don't think he ever played Ray--Arica would have had a field day.

So, I suspect the answer is some combo of the fact that Chris is a strong in-game player, he avoided some really bad squad matchups, and his strength of schedule via Swiss pairings might have been pretty weak (pretty sure his one loss in the prelims came early).

Okay, I will respond to the question about Sherman's squad, b/c I built it. He wanted something fun to play, and you don't get much more fun than a Han Swarm. The Xizor inclusion was my mistake. I built it late at night and didn't even realize it. My bad, there. Anyway, yeah, Lando Rebel Hero was in the final four.

Also, Sherman's first opponent was . . . me. And let me tell you, Arica wiped the floor with his squad, ha ha ha. He just won his next games well enough to make fourth. "Loser's Bracket" so they say, lol.

I'll give more of a report later, but, all I can say is, that was the best Missouri Regional ever!

_________________That's right, it's always the one in the middle you would least expect to be the most dangerous!

If you're going up against a team that doesn't have accurate or a big movement breaker, oh wow the Czerka/Atton/Bastila combo is nasty.

Isn't it? It was the main reason I beat Bill and Matt in Chicago. Atton able to kill a JH a turn is awesome. Congrats, and I'm glad the squad has some potential.

Oh yeah, it definitely has potential. Basically I feel like, with Atton, it's a decent squad against anything but Lancer, and if you dropped Atton for a Seer, it would probably be solid against the Lancer but much less good against everything else, and I'm not sure there's a good way to split the difference.

Everyone is clamoring about the new Atton (and he IS good), but someone said nobody will ever play the old Atton agin. I disagree strongly. They are quite different and both have their place (great job design team - this is what should happen!) But the old glass cannon is still nasty as all get out. 200 damage output against unactivated force users with ABM going and a Czerka. Top that new atton!

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